When I played back in the mid-90s, creatures were incredibly underpowered: easy to kill, and great for fun/munchkin play (Force of Nature! 8/8 for 6 mana!) Most of the "good" decks were creatureless.

The ridiculously powerful creatures and creature-strategies that came later (like Tarmogoyf and, to get really egregious, fucking affinity) seem to be overcorrections to the long-standing weakness of creatures. You could do a lot with your green growth decks (mana-generating elves and huge creatures on early turns) to beginning and intermediate players, but advanced players with reactive decks would shut those down handily.

On the broken cards that come out now and then, Type 2 is a necessary evil. It's not that the designers are bad. It's that Magic's metagame simply won't work if design flaws (which are inevitable with a game of such complexity, just because it's impossible to predict the exploits that thousands of players will discover) don't get scrubbed away a couple years after inception.

I also agree that the no-reprint policy around the Power 9 was politically motivated and wrong-headed. The way it should have been done is as follows:

    1. Art will be changed with every reprinting. This way, you aren't screwing 
       collectors by reprinting coveted cards. They have a guarantee that 
       the card, in that form, will never reprint. 
    2. Overpowered cards will be reprinted but "pointed", i.e. each Mox 
       might be 4 points 
       and Black Lotus might be 5 and Time Walk might be 7. Every tournament 
       sets a point limit (or no limit) that applies to all decks submitted. 
       That way, the constraint is still a deck-construction constraint rather 
       than which 13-year-old has a rich daddy.